The hazy red deity Con was the personification of subterranean fire. “He is light as air, has neither arms nor legs, nor muscles nor bones, nor joints nor nerves nor flesh, but runs very fast in all directions.” He came from the sea and flattened the hills and filled up the valleys, and by his simple word gave life to man. Viciously he converted the race of men he had created into black cats and other horrible animals, devastated the earth, deprived it of rain, and—retreated into the sea. His first temple was a volcano.
This left a free field for his equally omnipotent, equally hazy brother Pachacamac, who benignly created another race of men. Since Pachacamac was invisible and beyond their conception, the Incas built him no temples, but gave him secretly a superstitious worship, bowing their heads, lifting their eyes, and kissing the air as evidences of the reverence they felt at the mention of his name.
Here is a prayer reported by Geronimo de Ore: “O Pachacamac, thou who hast existed from the beginning, and shalt exist unto the end, powerful and pitiful; who createdst man by saying, ‘Let man be;’ who defendest us from evil, and preserves! our life and health;—art thou in the sky or in the earth, in the clouds or in the depths? Hear the voice of him who implores thee, and grant him his petitions. Give us life everlasting, preserve us, and accept this our sacrifice.”
The Inca mind could not reconcile the anterior existence of Uiracocha, Con, and Pachacamac with Sun-supremacy. We find them all called sons of the Sun, and so their importance could consistently fade away.
The origin of the two first Incas was mystery-veiled. Men discussed whether they were saved from the primeval waters robed in garments of light, or whether they came from three shining eggs laid by the lightning in a mountain cave after the deluge. Did they escape from the lower world through a giant reed, or were they imprisoned in a cave, over which Uiracocha appeared with wings of brilliant feathers to give Manco Ccapac the insignia—the scarlet fillet and the round gold plates? Some thought they emerged from Paccari-tampu, the Lodgings of the Dawn, not far from Cuzco. They had been led thither through caverns of the earth. Sarmiento relates that the Incas came out of a rich window, by order of Uiracocha, without parentage. The first Inca had an enchanted bird and a staff of gold, and came conferring fairy-tale benefits to mankind.
The legend most widely accepted taught that the Incas, who in the person of Manco Ccapac and his wife and sister Mama Ocllo came out of the cave of Paccari-tampu, were children of the Sun. He himself placed them on the Island of Titicaca and told them to wander until they should reach a place where their wedge of gold would be swallowed up by the ground at a touch. There they should build the capital of their empire. At the foot of the fortress of Sachsahuaman it disappeared, and so the city of Cuzco, the Navel of the World, was founded.
The poetic fiction of all these legends conceals an historic background of curious details. But with Father Acosta we should consider that “it is not matter of any great importance to know what the Indians themselves report of their beginning, being more like unto dreams than to true histories.” He continued: “They believe confidently they were created at their first beginning at this new world where they now dwell. But we have freed them of this error by our faith, which teacheth us that all men came from the first man.”
Besides all this maze of divinity and a symbolic astronomy, everything in nature had for them a soul that they might pray to for help. Not only the sun, moon, stars, thunder, and lightning, the rainbow, the elements, and rivers, but that deep sea from which they issued had a mysterious worship. They adored high mountains, homes of majestic gods whom they never saw, whence streams proceeded to water their terraces. They sacrificed to distant objects by blowing the ashes of burnt sacrifices into the air, offering them to the hills and to the wind. They adored all great stones, the mouths of rivers, all things in nature different from the rest, and offered to them small stones or a handful of earth or an eyelash.
Moreover, there was an elaborate fetishism. They had idols with a personal interest; they carried talismans; they had miniature domestic altars, where they offered chicha or flowers.
They tried to appease things that might injure them. They drank a handful of water from a dangerous river before crossing, and ate a bit of the stone which had harmed them, and offered in sacrifice a leaf of coca. The mysteries of coca epitomize the country where it grows. It not only fortifies the teeth, controlling mountain sickness, preventing fatigue, keeping off disease, strengthening broken bones; it cheers the spirit and invigorates the mind, and gives courage to perform impossible tasks.